The thing I love most about this my work as a photographer is that I get to visit some pretty amazing places, and meet super amazing people at the same time.

Visiting Trudy & Seamus, the owners of Bencluna, a beautiful old home close to Eureka in the Byron Bay Hinterland, was the kind of job that was lots of fun but also good for the soul.

Bencluna is currently rented out as accomodation and was bought by this lovely family from Sydney close to a year ago. Whilst they bought it furnished, they are putting their own personal style into it, piece by piece.

So Trudy engaged me to photograph some updated corners around the house as well her ceramics and her three gorgeous daughters…

Hand Built Studio is Trudy’s creative outlet, and she creates beautiful ceramics full of character and warmth. We worked together to put together some simple flatlays of some current products. Because each piece is unique and will be sold individually, I helped show Trudy how to use her camera to take her own product shots at home in the future.

I hadn’t photographed portraits in a long time, let alone kids! And Trudy was interested in having really relaxed candid shots of her girls being themselves, so as soon as I learnt there was a mulberry tree and tree swing for us to play with in the photographs I was at ease.